


It was better back when we were kids

by Thandra



Series: Love Songs Challenge [4]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Character Study, Friendship, Growing Up, Inspired by Music, LGBTQ Character, Male-Female Friendship, Post-Season/Series 03, Secret Crush, Song Lyrics, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:34:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23755438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thandra/pseuds/Thandra
Summary: They left Hawkins, and suddenly his whole image became meaningful in a new way: nobody knew him there, nobody identified him by what happened with Lonnie or that time he died - zombie, freak, fagott. Outside of Hawkins none of that mattered.
Relationships: Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler, Will Byers & Eleven | Jane Hopper, Will Byers & Mike Wheeler
Series: Love Songs Challenge [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1580896
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	It was better back when we were kids

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bluesmoke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluesmoke/gifts).



_ It was better back when we were kids _

_ Thought we knew everything, we really did _

_ Had no money but so rich _

  
  


The first big change, is something as shallow as it is cathartic: Will Bayers gets a haircut. He never thought much of his hair, never really paid them any attention at all, and then  _ they left Hawkins. _ They left Hawkins, and suddenly his whole image became meaningful in a new way: nobody knew him there, nobody identified him by what happened with Lonnie or that time he died -  _ zombie, freak, fagott.  _ Outside of Hawkins none of that mattered.

“Mom?” she looked sick that day - she has been looking sick for a while actually, just as Eleven has been looking empty; but there’s not much he can do about it, so he just tries to show them he’s there. “Yes, Honey? Is everything okay?”

“Yes, all good” he answers immediately, he doesn’t want to make her worry about something so shallow. “I just-” mom must hear the hesitation in his voice, cause she turns around to look at him, “I was just wondering if I could get a haircut? Like, from a barber? Just once, and I won’t have to get it now if it costs too much-”

“But of course, Honey” she says, with the softest voice - the voice she gets when she’s just glad he’s alive, and relatively well; well enough to ask for normal things, anyway. “We’ll ask your brother to take you, maybe on the weekend, yes?”

“Yeah,” he says, coming close to give her a hug “thanks, Mom.” Mom just smiles, her eyes kind of watery, and messes his hair. That saturday Jonathan takes him to the barber, the fancy one in the town center, and Will gets one of those Elvis inspired haircuts that are kind of out of fashion now, he thinks; but the nice lady who was waiting suggested it, and the barber agreed that it would look good on him. In the end Will got a new haircut, and he actually liked it.

  
  


_ Nobody cared about what we did _

_ Another fight and another kiss _

_ But now it's water under the bridge _

  
  


School had started for a month when El got the idea: they were in Will’s room, half listening to Jonathan’s old tapes and half just lazing around, when El rolled around on the bed to face him. Will can’t point out the moment they actually became friends, or when exactly they started talking, living in each other’s pockets, passing all their time together even at school - it was definitely a big  _ change _ , but one of the subtle ones.

“You know,” she says, looking at him with her default unreadable expression “we should get our ears pierced.” Will’s first instinct is to say  _ no _ \- actually:  _ hell no that’s gay, do you want us to get stuck in our lockers cause I look like a faggot?  _ But instead, he takes a second to think it over. 

“My sister has them, and all her friends, the boys too” she says, taking his silence as the uncertainty it stands for.  _ Kali,  _ El’s sister: she had talked about her a lot, for a while; mostly after they understood that talking about the friends they left behind,  _ of Mike _ , hurt too much. “Billy had them,” she says, and that actually makes his decision: Billy was a lot of things, but he surely wasn’t someone who got stuck in his locker, ever. 

They got their ears pierced without telling Mom - not that she wouldn’t approve, she’d probably do it for them, actually - in the middle of the night, in Jonathan’s bathroom while he was out meeting (aka: arguing) with Nancy. El got two, she found a pair of earrings similar to the ones Billy used to wear and never changed them since. Will gets just one, on his right side, and always wears one that mom gave him: a silver feather, _ from her hippie days _ she said. 

  
  


_ But I still call out for you _

_ Yeah, I still call out for you _

  
  


It takes a while, but at some point Will realizes he got taller. He’s walking side by side with El, after a rather dreadful chemistry hour, when she looks up. “Will?” she asks, voice filled with amusement, “are you okay? You’re making a weird face.” Will frawns, and El actually lets out a chuckle - rare occurrence these days, but it’s getting better.

“Since when do you have to look up to talk to me?” he asks - that’s the best thing about being El’s friend: she never judges. Probably because she’s still in the dark about most social norms, and the ones she learned she did from them, so. “I don’t know” she answers, smiling up at him - he must be making one hell of a face if she keeps grinning like that. “Why? You don’t like it?”

“It’s not that I don’t like it, it’s-”  _ it’s another change, and I don’t like changes much.  _ But, thinking about it, there hasn’t been any kissing lately - or getting ignored, or eluded, or just feeling dreadfully out of place. And so, so much  _ has changed already _ . So maybe, and that's a big maybe, not all changes are bad. 

“Are you wearing eyeliner?” he asks, after a while - another amazing thing about being El’s friend: she doesn’t mind silence, she actually enjoys it. “Yes” she answers, looking up at him with fiery eyes “my sister taught me, it’s bad ass.” Will shrugs, _ she’s not wrong _ . He looks down at her, his short hair flapping around a bit, his feather earring brushing his neck - there’s been so much changes already, what’s one more?

“Will you teach me?” he asks, and the smile that El gives him almost makes it all worth it on his own. She teaches him on lunch break, on their usual spot unter the only three in the parking lot. They laugh a lot, because even if he’s good with a pencil he’s apparently shitty with any kind of makeup - but in the end he gets it, and also likes very much how he looks with it. 

_ It’s just another change _ , he tells himself - he waits for another, the one he's been wishing for since he left Hawkins; but it doesn’t come.

  
  


_ Tell me what I'm gonna do now _

_ Because I realize now I need you _

_ I'd do anything now to see you _

  
  


The thing that doesn’t change, no matter how much he wishes for it, comes to visit for Christmas.  _ He _ , weirdly enough, didn’t change at all. He’s still funny, and too tall, and his nose is too big - he’s  _ Mike _ , and Will wouldn't change a fucking thing after all. 

“Here” Mike says, smirking deviously at him, “this is from us. Like, all of us: Lucas, Dustin, Max, Steve. Even Nancy helped.” Will's cheeks are slightly pink, ‘cause he’s close to the fire - not at all because Mike is looking at him with his eyes shining, and hasn’t looked away for like a minute. “Come on!” he says, jumping up and down a bit - he’s too tall, and he’s also sitting. He should look ridiculous. Will isn’t blushing. “Open it! Open it! Open it!” 

El, who’s sitting beside Mike with her head on his shoulder, laughs - something in Will’s stomach turns. It’s probably too much pie, he should have been more careful. Will smiles at them, and finally tears the paper wrapping the big present on his lap. It’s leather, real and soft - a jacket, a leather jacket of the fancy kind. “I don’t condone animal cruelty” Nancy says, from the couch “but I have to admit they choose a cool one”

“El said you started walking around dressed like Danny Zuko or something” Mike says, still looking at him - Will is still speechless, eyes fixed on the leather on his lap, almost unblinking. “And then Nancy showed a photo of you, and you were all cool and tall and shit. The eyeliner and the earring, and the hair! It was the only thing missing!” Will blushes, thanks him profusely and promises to write his thanks to the others and keeps blushing every time Mike calls him cool. 

  
  
  


_ Another consequence, another day _

_ And now I'm caught up in a rat race _

_ Yeah, no money, just got picked _

_ You take me back to when I was free _

_ You take me back to a memory _

_ To the water under the bridge _

  
  
Will hears Mike sneak into El’s room that night, and he swears he can almost hear the kisses and the  _ I love yous.  _ In the end it’s not  _ changes _ he’s scared of, it’s  _ reality _ \- reality and the pang he feels in the chest, the feeling he can ignore  _ but not change.  _

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! The Stranger Thing Fandom pulled me back in and now I can't get enough of it: expect at least other two fics from this series to be about it. Tell me what you thought of this little thing, and thank you for reading.  
> When we were kids by Walking on Cars. 
> 
> Also, pray with me for @bluesmoke to come back.


End file.
